Word: lorient
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...estimated numbers (some now prisoners) whom the Nazis left behind: Cherbourg 35,000; Saint-Malu 4,000; Brest 35,000; Lorient 10,000; Saint-Nazaire 10,000; Le Havre 9,000; Boulogne 7,000; Calais 10,000; Dunkirk 10,000; Mouth of the Scheldt...
Toward the other German-held Brittany ports-Saint-Nazaire and Lorient -U.S. soldiers plugged at a less spectacular pace. The British, ready to close on Le Havre, hoped it would not become another Brest. But they had little hope that the Germans, if they were squeezed out, would not first clog its deep port with destruction, as they had Cherbourg...
...Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, Germans still held out, but elsewhere in Brittany German resistance was battered down. This week the besieged ports were more than ever prizes worth the price in casualties and time; their deep harbors were sorely needed for the vast stream of supplies to the swiftly expanding Allied front in northern France...
...Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, it was a time of anguish. He must get the 1st and 9th Submarine Flotillas away from Brest, the 2nd and 10th from Lorient, the 6th and 7th from St. Nazaire. But where could he send them? The only other Biscay bases were La Pallice and Bordeaux, each with facilities for only one flotilla, which already crowded the pens. Farther north were Bergen and Trondheim, with berths for a single flotilla apiece. But the Allied navies patrolled the Atlantic looking for U-boats on the escape routes and the Mediterranean was an Allied lake, closed...
...three great U-boat bases at Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire took terrific poundings from land and air, but the Germans held on doggedly. For U.S. troops there was no choice but to fight their way in; the ports were needed by the A.E.F. and every day they held out was a day more for the last-ditch defenders...